Conventionally, shooters and hunters may mount some type of optical scope on their rifles to aid in target engagement. The optical scope allows the shooter to see targets at longer ranges, and provides a reticle or cross-hair that shows the shooter where to aim the gun. When mounting the optical scope to the gun, shooters must align their scope such that the reticle is aligned with the gun's barrel so that their aim point aligns with where the barrel is pointing. The process of aligning the optical scope to the gun is sometimes referred to as a calibration process. The calibration process is usually difficult and tedious and often involves manual adjustments, which are subject to human error. In particular, the user may need to fire the rifle multiple times, making small adjustments after each shot, to accurately calibrate the rifle scope to the rifle.
When mounting the scope, a user uses a manual boresight method to grossly align the scope reticle with the barrel bore by looking down the barrel bore at a target then adjusting the reticle position to align with the same target. Typically, the user manually adjusts the reticle position by turning knobs or turrets to move the reticle left or right and up or down. After the user has aligned his scope and barrel as closely as possible by bore-sighting, the user then will shoot rounds at a target to verify the alignment and to make further left/right and/or up/down adjustments. This method of aligning the optical scope to the rifle is time consuming and potentially inaccurate.
The alignment between the scope and gun may move and change based on many factors including the shock generated by the firing of the gun, changes in the barrel orientation due to shock and heat, changes in temperature and other environmental conditions, and jostling and vibration during shipping and transport. The alignment may also move or change in response to mechanical movement, internal heating and cooling, remounting, and accidents, such as dropping the firearm with the scope attached. As a result, from shot-to-shot, the scope may lose some degree of alignment with the barrel resulting in inaccurate shots.